interest in what he was saying. His words rambled
to their goal with the effect of happy accident.

"There are places in this neighborhood in which a human being would be
as hard to find as the flag that you and Governor Hamilton have so
diligently and unsuccessfully been in quest of for the past month or
two. Really, my son, this is a mysterious little town."

Farnsworth's eyes widened and a flush rose in his swarthy cheeks.

"Damn the flag!" he exclaimed. "Let it lie hidden forever; what do I
care? I tell you, Father Beret, that Alice Roussillon is in extreme
danger. Governor Hamilton means to put some terrible punishment on her.
He has a devil's vindictiveness. He showed it to me clearly awhile ago."

"You showed something of the same sort to me, once upon a time, my son."

"Yes, I did, Father Beret, and I got a load of slugs in my shoulder for
it from that brave girl's pistol. She saved your life. Now I ask you to
help me save hers; or, if not her life, what is infinitely more, her
honor."

"Her honor!" cried Father Beret, leaping to his feet so suddenly and
with such energy that the cabin shook from base to roof. "What do you
say, Captain Farnsworth? What do you mean?"

The old man was transformed. His face was terrible to see, with its
narrow, burning eyes deep under the shaggy brows, its dark veins
writhing snakelike on the temples and forehead, the projected mouth and
chin, the hard lines of the jaws, the iron-gray gleam from all the
features--he looked like an aged tiger stiffened for a spring.

Farnsworth was made of right soldierly stuff; but he felt a distinct
shiver flit along his back. His past life had not lacked thrilling
adventures and strangely varied experiences with desperate men. Usually
he met sudden emergencies rather calmly, sometimes with phlegmatic
indifference. This passionate outburst on the priest's part, however,
surprised him and awed him, while it stirred his heart with a profound
sympathy unlike anything he had ever felt before.

Father Beret mastered himself in a moment, and passing his hand over
his face, as if to brush away the excitement, sat down again on his
stool. He appeared to collapse inwardly.

"You must excuse the weakness of an old man, my son," he said, in a
voice hoarse and shaking. "But tell me what is going to be done with
Alice. Your words--what you said--I did not understand."

He rubbed his forehead slowly, as one who has difficulty in trying to
collect h